History Jerkass / LiveActionTv

* ''Series/BlackBooks'': Bernard Black. Not only is he rude and deliberately unhelpful to his own customers, but he's just as bad to the only two friends he has left; he's a pretentious, patronising, lazy alcoholic who barely lifts a finger to operate his bookshop (which is only barely keeping afloat) and takes actual pleasure out of torturing Manny using his [[ItMakesSenseInContext moblie-phone induced head pains]] and alienates one his oldest friend by showing up drunk to his house and puking in his sink. Is somewhat justified since he's SurroundedByIdiots, (although they pass around the IdiotBall from episode to episode) and by his FreudianExcuse (although when it's explained fully, it turns out that he [[spoiler: must have been just as bad as he is now, if not worse, as she faked her own death to get away from him. It still seems to have affected him, though.]]

* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': Cliff Clavin is not only a KnowNothingKnowItAll, he's also the Jerk Ass - so much so at one point he tries to give himself electroshock therapy to stop being a jerkass. Needless to say, it doesn't work. Carla Tortelli also serves as a Jerk Ass - at one point, Rebecca tells Carla, "There's some customers over there having a good time. Shouldn't you be putting a stop to it?"

** Chang qualifies for the biggest Jerkass on the show. He's constantly abusing his power as a teacher, he regularly insults the students and faculty, and it's revealed early on that the only reason he's like that is because [[spoiler: his wife left him]]. And even after [[spoiler: Jeff convinces her to take him back]], he's still a Jerkass to everyone. After season one he becomes a mix of Jerkass and AxCrazy.

** [[spoiler: Cassie herself becomes as cruel, sadistic and cold as Nate in Season 2 when she starts having an affair with him. She stops caring about how Maddy will feel despite the fact she knew about the abuse she suffered and is willing to cross lines and destroy, abuse and torture those who stop her "happy life" with him, especially Maddy and Lexi both of whom she begins to have a lot of hatred in her heart for them and has zero remorse for the damage she caused.]]

* ''Series/FatherTed'': Several characters. There's Father Jack, Bishop Brennan, Father Dick Byrne, Father Stack, and Father Ted himself to a lesser extent. While Ted is the most sympathetic character in some respects, in others, he's actually worse than the others, having stolen funds from [[NoodleIncident "that Lourdes thing."]]

* ''Series/TheFlash2014'': Season Two introduces the Harrison Wells of Earth-2, who is abrasive, rude, and uninterested in making friends with the Earth-1 characters. In flashbacks to his life on Earth-2, he's antagonistic towards [[spoiler: Jay Garrick]], and seems to have some BadBoss tendencies. However, he starts to [[DefrostingIceKing defrost]] a little as Team Flash warms up to him, suggesting that at least some of his behaviour is just an act caused by his heartbreak over Zoom having kidnapped his daughter eight months previously.

** Whilst Roose Bolton is usually [[PragmaticVillainy pretty measured]], he likes to indulge in this if he feels he can get away with it. For example, giving Jaime Lannister, [[spoiler: who's just had his hand chopped off]], a steak that's too hard to cut on his own and making Brienne [[IronicNickname the Beauty]] wear an extremely unflattering dress at a dinner.
** Viserys Targaryen was self-absorbed, childishly entitled, disrespectful to pretty much everyone - even his sister Daenerys, whom he was also abusive to, thoughtlessly cruel and generally unpleasant. Pretty much every scene with him involved some form of KickTheDog, and he served as a reminder that the Targaryens were once horrible, ''horrible'' people. His KarmicDeath at the hands of Khal Drogo via [[CruelAndUnusualDeath a crown of molten gold]] [[KickTheSonOfABitch was most assuredly cheered for by many viewers]].

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Dr. Gregory House, the main character, is obnoxious to an almost religious degree, devoting his life to proving that kindness is rooted in selfishness and fear. He usually gets away with it because he's the patient's [[BunnyEarsLawyer only chance of survival]], although the show does put a strain on your WillingSuspensionOfDisBelief in its realism, as a House who actually did suffer the consequences of his behaviour would make the show's premise impossible. The writers seem to realise how far he's stretching his luck. Boss Cuddy notes that she got House for a fraction of what he's worth because the other hospitals won't touch him with a barge pole, he's in a legal mess by Season Three, and in the season finale, his ''entire'' medical staff quit - although he fired one of them (after the other two quit on their own accord). It's then immediately reversed at the beginning of the fourth season, when, despite his JerkAss tendencies, and his well-deserved reputation for being an asshole, he ''still'' has forty very qualified (with one exception) doctors damn near ''killing'' each other to be on his team. And he forces each and every one one them through a season-long hazing ritual, but people have put up with worse to learn under a genius, and in spite of his attitude, House ''is'' a genius with diagnostic medicine. Later seasons, though, pushed the envelope even further, with the drug-addicted House being (temporarily) fired, committed to an asylum to dry out, and then later imprisoned after nearly mowing down Cuddy in his sedan. Realizing that they'd likely gone too far with that last, Season 8 toned it down and worked to re-establish him as the JerkWithAHeartOfGold he had been at the beginning of the series, but by then they already had multiple seasons of stretching the bounds of credibility to an absurd extent.

* ''Series/{{MASH}}'': Major Frank Burns. Though only one of the characters qualifying as a DrJerk, Burns stood out for his lack of surgical skills, constant scheming to get rid of Col. Blake, and all around nastiness to tentmates [[TheHero Hawkeye]], [[TheLancer Trapper]], [[DroppedABridgeOnHim Spearchucker]], and [[PluckyComicRelief B.J.]] (whom he once ''shot in the leg''). Shooting B.J. was an accident attributable to Frank's idiocy rather than his jerkassity. He has both in spades. This was the reason Larry Linville (Burns' actor) left the series - he felt that he had gone as far as he could with the character, and that Burns' jerk tendencies were so awful there was no way at all to redeem him.

** Rachel Matheson didn't start out as one, but she certainly became one after "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E11TheStand The Stand]]", with her attitude turning into ItsAllAboutMe {{Wangst}}. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E12Ghosts Ghosts]]" had her slapping Charlie because her daughter tried to call her out on never being there for her or Danny Matheson. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E17TheLongestDay The Longest Day]]" had her stooping low by leading the Blackmores to believe that she could heal their son Philip, and then abandon them. Not only that, but she reveals to Aaron Pittman that the only reason she wants to turn the power back on is to give the other Republics the ability to kill Sebastian Monroe and thereby avenge [[spoiler: Danny's death]]. She also warns Aaron that if he doesn't help her, she'll abandon him too. This is after he refused to abandon her and went to a lot of trouble to heal her wounds, which were the result of one of her screw-ups in "The Love Boat".
** Major Tom Neville has been one since "Pilot", but he was mostly able to pass himself off as an AffablyEvil villain. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E4ThePlagueDogs The Plague Dogs]]" had him arresting Danny again and this was after the kid saved his life. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E5SoulTrain Soul Train]]" had Neville use Danny as a punching bag to vent his frustrations out on. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E7TheChildrensCrusade The Children's Crusade]]" has Neville snatch Eve Jaffe, and when Rachel tried begging Neville to let her go, Neville coldly reveals to Dr. Bradley Jaffe that Rachel told him about Jaffe in the first place and making it easy to find Eve in the first place. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E8TiesThatBind Ties That Bind]]" had him calling the Californians "heathens" and throwing his so-called friends the Fabers under the bus to save his son's life. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E10NobodysFaultButMine Nobody's Fault But Mine]]" had him say that he was a big fan of Aaron, but then went into a childish WhosLaughingNow speech because Aaron had the nerve to ask where Charlie and Miles were taken to. "The Stand" had him gloating over the systematic extermination of rebels, and then beating up his son and throwing him out because the son refused to call in the air strike. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E13TheSongRemainsTheSame The Song Remains the Same]]" has him suffering humiliations, not being upset over Danny's death, as well as killing a rebel preacher. "The Love Boat" emphasizes the Jerkass part of him by having him lord it over Team Matheson, treat Dr. Ethan Camp and his family like dirt, and flying off the handle over things like Charlie putting a gun to his head, his son criticizing him and saying he hates him, and so on. "The Longest Day" has Neville slapping his son around and taunting him for not having the guts to shoot him dead on the spot. "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E19ChildrenOfMen Children of Men]]" and "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E20TheDarkTower The Dark Tower]]" have Tom Neville [[spoiler: successfully take over the Monroe Republic in a coup, murder Major Mark Franklin and pass it off as self-defense, betray Team Matheson and the Georgia Federation, and go back on a promise he made to his son to spare Rachel and Charlie]].

** Elaine was a supreme Jerkass, culminating in Mary throwing a pie in her face at dinner. Then Elaine opened up to Danny about her dysfunctional upbringing and started to turn things around [[spoiler: -- only to wind up getting killed]].

*** The living Ancients that showed up in "The Return". "Thanks for protecting our city, now get the fuck out so we can wallow in our misery." Not verbatim, obviously, but this is essentially what they wanted. They blamed the Atlantis team for everything that was happening with the Wraith (Woolsey at least has the good sense to call their commander on this and she shuts up real fast), threw the Athosians off the planet (they weren't even living in the city, the Ancients apparently felt they needed the ''entire planet'' - they only repopulated Atlantis mind you - to themselves), and only allowed O'Neill and Woolsey to stay as guests. Frankly, it's hard to sympathize when they all die in the next episode.
** ''Series/StargateUniverse'': Ups the ante on Atlantis by having an entire cast composed of extreme jerkasses, with only one or two exceptions. But then it is pretty much [[JustForFun/XMeetsY Battlestargate]] [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Galactiverse]] (with the worst qualities of both). They do get better though, when Rush and Young come to an agreement and when Rush [[spoiler: sits in the Ancient chair and sees his wife die again.]] They all have moments, but in general the characters, except for Telford, have escaped from this trope. Telford may be stepping away from {{Jerkass}} territory, now that [[spoiler: he's no longer under the brainwashing influence of the Lucian Alliance]].

* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'': Owen Harper. Despite being unbelievably rude, sexist and condescending - not to mention opening the Rift, with apocalyptic results, and shooting his superior, Captain Jack Harkness, in the head three times (don't worry, he got better) - everyone on the show seems to love him (sometimes, inexplicably, in a romantic sense; not one, not two, but ''three'' of his female co-workers have been strongly sexually attracted to him). Flashbacks in "Fragments" showed he ''was'' nice, but losing his fiancée and joining Torchwood really took its toll and he gradually dialed back to a JerkWithAHeartOfGold by series 2.

** Rick is an over-the-top example of this character type- whiny, egocentric, quite hypocritical about his leftism, and so on. His reaction when he found out his parents died? "I WAS GONNA SPEND THE WHOLE SUMMER WITH THEM!" One of his housemates describes his name as being spelled "with a silent P."
** Vyvyan is all but a psychotic madman - every episode has him trashing the entire house without any regard for the well being of, well, anything.
** Mike might be milder than Rick and Vyvyan, but that's not saying much- he's still a self-absorbed schmoozer who's pretty much bribed and blackmailed himself through school. He didn't tell Rick his parents were dead until Rick mentioned what he was going to do over summer.
** Even Neil tosses around the JerkassBall occasionally- his particular brand of {{Jerkass}}ery simply takes the form of whining, self-absorbed {{Wangst}} rather than the more sociopathically violent form of his housemates. His response upon learning of the death of both Rick's parents was to moan "You think ''that's'' bad?" Even with leeway for the fact that the other three pretty much used him as a punching bag, that's a bit of an aloof response.

** Tauza from “Incubator”, the Scarran assigned to train Scorpius, a Scarran-Sebacean hybrid, is this UpToEleven. Her “training” was just flat-out torturing him both mentally and physically from the day he was born out of FantasticRacism, and was at best cold and condescending and at worst torturing him [[ForTheEvulz out of sheer sadism.]] She somehow manages to get ''even worse'' when she puts Scorpius through insanely hellish torture (so painful that ''remembering it nearly killed him'') and showing him a video of his mother being raped. This, however, leads to [[TheDogBitesBack Scorpius]] [[LaserGuidedKarma stabbing her in the eyes with a broken coolant rod and leaving her to freeze to death.]]

* ''Series/HellsKitchen'':
** There are many, many Jerkasses on this show. Prominent examples include Jeff from Season 1, Sara and Keith from Season 2, Josh from Season 3, Jason, Ben, and Jen from Season 4, Andrea from Season 5, Joseph from Season 6, and Scott and Benjamin from Season 7. What also doesn't help is that the good majority of the Jerkasses are the ones who can cook well, but are horrible with getting along with the team, prolonging their stay in Hell's Kitchen.
** Joseph was so bad that he was suspected to be a plant, though one thinks that if that was the case, he would have hung around for several episodes instead of blowing his stack and getting kicked off at the end of the second episode.
** Sabrina in Season 8 tried to get teammate Nona eliminated in the first episode ''because she snores'' (and because she made fried chicken, which Sabrina felt did not count as a good dish).
** Russell from Season 8 was just as bad, if not worse. He was probably the most talented chef in the competition, but by the final dinner service everyone despised him so much that Nona's brigade was fired up at the prospect of beating him, and Russell's brigade clearly put minimal effort into cooking for him. Russell even vowed to ''blackball'' the chefs he picked for causing him to lose (even though he did plenty to lose it himself, like trying to fire two tables at once and nearly getting in a fight with Rob). Classy to the end.
** Season 9's Elise definitely takes the cake. Her irrational hatred of Carrie as well as her tendency to blame others for her mistakes and never take responsibility for her own made her extremely unpopular among her fellow chefs, as well as the audience. When Jennifer was eliminated (the two never got along to begin with), Elise mouthed off about how much of a better chef than she was, causing Jennifer to curse Elise out and flip her off when she walked off. She did, however, redeem herself after getting eliminated by being Paul's strongest cook, even putting aside her hatred of Carrie (who was also on Paul's team) to help Paul win, which he did.
%%** For season 10, there's Clemenza, Kimmie, Robyn, Royce, and Tiffany.
** Season 11 had Dan, who might be considered the worst of the lot, even above the likes of Joseph and Russell. Regardless of his talent Ramsay had to boot him off for his utterly toxic attitude.

** Jonathan Kent lapses into this at times, most especially in Season 2's "Insurgence" when he rails at Lex and then Clark for trying to help him and Martha reconcile after a marital spat.

** Abed has recently been shown to care very little for his other friends' interests and very demeaning of them even when they're trying to help him. His catfishing of Annie follows similar examples of seducing Annie with a character, but unlike the other examples (eg, his Han Solo type character while playing paintball) this one had no reason to exist and was one where Annie had no idea it was him.

%%** For season 10 there's Clemenza, Kimmie, Robyn, Royce, and Tiffany.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Barney Stinson treads the line between JerkAss and JerkWithAHeartOfGold. He's definitely the latter towards his friends -- despite often being manipulative, insensitive, and insulting towards them, he's done a number of incredibly sweet and selfless things for them out of sheer love and devotion. But to the people outside of a tight-knit circle that seems to consist of Ted, Marshall, Lily, Robin, his mother Loretta, his brother James, his brother's husband Tom, and his nephew Eli, he's a straight JerkAss who demonstrates barely any trace of scruples or conscience. At least, until season six, where his CharacterDevelopment reaches a new level that includes glimmers of self-awareness about how his actions affect strangers.

** Abed has recently been shown to care very little for his other friends' interests and very demeaning of them even when they're trying to help him.

** Pierce is insulting and insensitive.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': Sheldon is probably the most unusual case for this trope. While he is very intelligent, he has been known to be a real nuisance to his friends, by trying to take all charge for Leonard's app idea, trying to sabotage them after they kick him out, staying at Raj and Howard's houses and keeping them up, never accepting gifts from others, kicking Raj out of his apartment due to regulations, and so on. He also forces the others to obey his ridiculously rigid schedules to the point of trying to control them and belittles his friends (especially Howard for daring to be an engineer).

** Reg Trotter, who just packed his bags and left his family to fend for themselves after his wife Joan died.

* ''Series/OneHundredDeedsForEddieMcDowd'': Eddie [=McDowd=] is the ''epitome'' of TheBully, not to mention that [[TheFaceless his face is not shown to the viewers]]. He arrives to school stealing a student's sandwich for breakfast, probably bullies a teacher for money, pushing a student to a trash can, and bullies another student for milk. When Justin Taylor came to the school, he is spilled milk on him by ''accident''. Eddie starts to retaliate by putting paint on him and hanging him on a flagpole. Later on, he skips classes just to "exercise" by tossing rocks into windows. Noticing a dog, Eddie starts throwing rocks on the car that it's hiding [[MoralEventHorizon until it explodes]]. The Drifter shows up and knows ''everything about Eddie'' of how he took people's lunch money, the bikes he stole, the kids he terrorized, and his heart-shaped birthmark. The Drifter, to a lesser extent, as he may be a WellIntentionedExtremist, but he acts like an a-hole about Eddie doing good deeds.

* ''Series/{{House}}'': Dr. Gregory House, the main character, is obnoxious to an almost religious degree, devoting his life to proving that kindness is rooted in selfishness and fear. He usually gets away with it because he's the patient's [[BunnyEarsLawyer only chance of survival]], although the show does put a strain on your WillingSuspensionOfDisBelief in its realism, as a House who actually did suffer the consequences of his behaviour would make the show's premise impossible. The writers seem to realise how far he's stretching his luck. Boss Cuddy notes that she got House for a fraction of what he's worth because the other hospitals won't touch him with a barge pole, he's in a legal mess by Season Three, and in the finale, his ''entire'' medical staff quit - although he fired one of them (after the other two quit on their own accord). Later seasons pushed the envelope with the drug-addicted House being (temprarily) fired, committed to an asylum to dry out, and imprisoned after nearly mowing down Cuddy in his sedan. It's then immediately reversed at the beginning of the fourth season, when, despite his JerkAss tendencies, and his well-deserved reputation for being an asshole, he ''still'' has forty very qualified (with one exception) doctors damn near ''killing'' each other to be on his team. And he forces each and every one one them through a season-long hazing ritual. People have put up with worse to learn under a genius, and in spite of his attitude, House ''is'' a genius with diagnostic medicine.